After allegations last spring that several schools in Birmingham, England had been infiltrated by a group of people “with a restricted and narrow interpretation of their faith” trying to achieve an “Islamisation” of secular state schools (Operation Trojan Horse), Education Secretary Michael Grove announced that schools throughout the country would have to promote “British values of tolerance.”

A protest sprung up at Hobby Lobby in Burbank Saturday, roughly three months after an initial series of demonstrations that followed the opening of the craft chain on Victory Boulevard.
The protest, hosted by the Reproductive Justice Coalition of Los...

The British Humanist Assn. recently began a poster campaign in the London Underground offering a daily “Thought for the Commute,” not only to garner attention for the association, but also to get commuters to ponder the meaning of life....

LOS ALAMITOS — By a vote of 7-2, the Providence High baseball team will likely have more time to make history in Division VI of the CIF Southern Section.
That's because Providence's league, the Liberty League, had its appeal to be dropped from...

A section of a recent Pew Center Research poll on political polarization and family life asked Americans how they would react if a member of their immediate family told them they were going to marry one of the following: an atheist, a gun owner, someone...

A recent study on religious affiliation and hiring discrimination in the American South, published in the journal Social Currents and reported by the Washington Post, showed that while Southern employers are likely to prefer applicants who make no overt statements of religious identity, applications from Jewish job hunters stand a better chance of getting a second look than those whose resumes contain clues they are affiliated with any other religion.
Q: Do the results of the study surprise you? Do...

Pope Francis this month visited Seoul, South Korea, where he beatified 124 Korean martyrs, Catholics who were killed in the 18th and 19th centuries for standing up for their religion when the Joseon Dynasty was bent on bringing a halt to Western influence on the Korean Peninsula. “They challenge us to think about what, if anything, we ourselves would be willing to die for,” the pope said.
Q: In what ways do you or others who share your beliefs make sacrifices or stand up for them?
Jesus...

Although over the years the relationship between Israel and the United Nations has been somewhat rocky due to the Palestinian issue, 32 nations, including the United States, in late July sent a letter to a U.N. committee asking that the body recognize Judaism’s holiest day, Yom Kippur, as an official holiday. Presently the U.N. recognizes the Christian holidays Christmas and Good Friday and the Muslim holidays Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. It also sets aside the U.S. holidays New Year’s Day,...

Scott Lasky taught himself how to build a website so that the church he belongs to could be online. That’s what you do when you’re a large, networked organization: You have a website and you get on the Internet like everyone else.
He quickly learned it was a big job to be responsible for the Web presence of an entire church community.
“It was hacked twice — I finally hired a programmer to help me,” he said.
Seven years later, the home page for the Burbank Church of...

A graphic artist/book designer from Santa Cruz has successfully raised $1.4 million, far exceeding the $37,000 he was seeking on the crowd-funding website Kickstarter to create a Bible without chapters. Adam Lewis Greene says his “Bibliotheca” project would create four volumes that would present the stories of the Bible more as literature. According to his Kickstarter description, “the text is reverently treated in classic typographic style, free of all added conventions such as...

Retired Israeli President Shimon Peres during a meeting with Pope Francis this month proposed a new global peace initiative: A “United Nations of Religions,” the Washington Post and other news sources reported.
“People who shoot the most these days nearly always say they are doing it in God’s name,” Peres told the Italian Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana before meeting with the pope. “What is needed is an unquestionable moral authority that says in a strong...

I wish to offer both a clarification and an update to the article written by Gretchen Meier on Family Promise of East San Fernando Valley ("Family Promise making progress," Sept. 25).
It is indeed a network of 23 congregations serving homeless families in this area. However, contrary to the otherwise fine report on Family Promise, the network comprises not only churches, but several synagogues as well. The synagogue of which I have the honor of serving as spiritual leader is one of the founding...